Medical guidelines for children a `fantastic step forward'

From the archive, first published Wednesday 28th Sep 2005.

A leading medical charity has described today's launch of new medicine guidelines for children as a fantastic step forward.

Action Medical Research has welcomed the new British National Formulary for Children which offers guidance on the doses of medicine prescribed to children.

The charity has been campaigning since 2000 for better, evidence-based guidelines to help doctors prescribe safe and effective doses of drugs for children.

Research suggests 40 per cent of the medicines given to children have never actually been tested on children and for new-born babies the figure is 65 per cent.

Action Medical Research claims in the absence of clear guidelines, GPs and hospital doctors have been forced to rely on their best professional judgements when determining the optimum dosage of some drugs for young patients.

In 2002 the charity unveiled the findings of a study into the use of 10 drugs that are commonly prescribed to hospitalised children.

But which are unlicensed or untested for young patients.

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